Improving Access to Community Mental Health Team Buildings Central Beds – A Service User led QI project

This month we sat down with Bob Cazley, a service user from Bedfordshire who is Project Lead on the only active Service User led and coached QI project here at ELFT. He told us about the project and about how important Service User involvement is in QI.

The project team from left to right; Ramesh, Carys, Tonia, Cara, Bob

Bob Cazley is a service user at East London Foundation Trust and is leading the team on this Service User led and coached project. The aim of the project is to improve access and the welcome to all community mental health buildings in Central Bedfordshire.

Background

The Central Beds Working Together Group came up with the project idea after it was discussed a couple of times at their monthly meetings. They felt access to the CMHT buildings needed to be more straightforward and welcoming so decided to start a QI project to improve the situation, which Bob offered to lead on, and the project was born.

The Project team

This is only service user led and coached QI project within ELFT and consists of team members of the Central Beds Working Together Group. Bob is project lead, Craig Donohoe (also a service user) is their QI Coach and it is Sponsored by Dr Farid Jabbar (Clinical Director, Luton & Bedfordshire Community Services).  Bob and the team are delighted with the team’s progress so far. The team has created a survey to see how staff, service users and carers feel about access, they are conducting Service User lead assessments of sites around Central Bedfordshire and the team, while spaced out are staying in touch virtually. Bob says “One of the major bug bears of projects for teams is accessibility, therefore it’s so important we stay in touch, I have a background in IT so even if we can’t meet in person I ensure we keep in touch virtually”.

Service user involvement

When chatting to Bob about his leading in this project we asked him how he felt about Service Users across the trust and their involvement in QI.

“ELFT are being revolutionary in their involvement of Service Users in QI. In the corporate world everything is done from the top down but Service Users cover their view from the bottom up. Without the voice of the Service User in a project how do you know you are improving the service they use?”